Black Pearl Bar (Vosges)

Brand: Vosges

Calories: 425 a bar
Calories per gram: 5

Price: $8.00

Where I found it: University of Washington Bookstore

Where you can probably find it: Vosges website

Granted, the name of the bar did not entice me: "Black Pearl Bar"--Pirates of the Caribbean?  No, it was not until I read the description of said chocolate bar that I was excited.  Sure, I've had sesame and ginger in chocolate but... wasabi?!  That sounded like a fascinating combination of flavors, and given my love for Japanese cuisine, seemed to satiate a part of my quest for gourmet, exotic chocolate.

I opened the box:

You've... you've got to be kidding me, right?  Today is July 13, 2011, and this bar is going to expire in a week.  That may not seem daunting since you can easily eat one bar of chocolate in that given time, but I have two!  Aside from that, how attractive, Vosges, for abruptly stamping the expiry date on the luxurious silver foil.

Mm, delicious dark chocolate.  These photos make it seem lighter than they really are, however.  I haven't disrobed all of the bar of its foil veneer, and so I can only describe these two squares of chocolate shown here.  The left one is of a cartoonish woman carrying a Vosges shopping bag, and the right one is the Vosges logo.  I don't know what that weird streak of... weirdness is, though.

The back even has a guide to indulging in these exotic chocolate bar, and who am I but to modestly take its advice?  Heeding its step-by-step procedure, I attempted to inhale the smell and found that... well, it smelled like dark chocolate, that was certain. 

Other than that, though, there was none else!  I expected that pungent ginger smell to be present, at the very least, but no odor of wasabi nor sesame could have been detected.  I thought to myself that despite having no odor, the taste can punch you as a surprise attack.

Another step was to rub the chocolate.  Now, I don't enjoy rubbing milk-enhanced cocoa bars said to be infused with characteristic Japanese goodness, but I did so anyway.  Still no smell.  Might as well take a bite and perhaps I'll be shocked.

Vosges, I am disappointed.  This is may be the biggest disappointment in "interesting flavors" to fall flat, and--how on Earth can you manage to mask wasabi?!  

Alright, here I will describe what I experienced: I bit into the chocolate, and it was quite smooth and soft enough--not chalky, not a single bit.  And as you can see in the picture, there were many air pockets, and therefore a bite did not feel heavy at all.

As I chewed I bit into black sesame seeds, and being a lover of sesame seeds, I split one open in my mouth and expected some sort of sesame oil to shine through.  There was none--I might have been eating berry seeds for all that matter.

I searched high and low for ginger and wasabi tastes--none.  And if it was there, it was so incredibly subtle, and confused me if I had picked up a bad bar or something was wrong with my tongue.  In fact, I had planned to eat only one piece, but due to the absence of any of the expected flavors I ate a second one to be sure.  

What a regret of calories--it tasted much of the same.  I couldn't even tell if my mind attempted to make up the flavors of ginger and wasabi while tasting the chocolate, due to my trying so hard to find them.

The dark chocolate, however, was delicious.  I have to say that was the high point of the Black Pearl Bar because it was a great pleasure to eat with tea.  That was its only saving grace, however.  Hopefully these flavors were nonexistent owing to the close proximity of the expiration date, but--come on!  How--how?!

Sorry, Vosges, but that $8.00 is freaking ridiculous.